Feasibility Study of an off- Grid Hybrid PV/Wind Power Generation System for Health Clinic at Samara University

Abstract

Environmental and economic problems that caused by over-dependence on fossil fuels have increased the demand and request for green energy produced by alternative renewable sources. At the Health Clinic of Samara University there is a frequent power interruption, and this causes a problem in the working area of the site, especially in the more power sensitive in the emergency room and the laboratory room. When power is interrupted it may become a cause for the death of many infants, pregnant mothers, patients in the emergency rooms and others. Thus, the main purpose of this thesis work, is the feasibility study of PV-Wind hybrid energy system with diesel generator as a backup and battery bank as storage to electrify for Health Clinic at Samara University. The feasibility study of this thesis is analyzed using Hybrid Optimization Model for Electrical Renewable (HOMER) software. The paper utilized meteorological data obtained from National Meteorological Agency of Ethiopia and NASA to estimate the solar and wind energy potentials of the site. Primary load demand of the site is 212 kWh/day, peak load of 24 kW, deferrable energy is about 3.5 kWh/day, and deferrable peak load of 800W was involved during optimization of the power system. Well known HOMER software modeling tool has been used to design the off-grid system of the site. Since, the Wind and solar energy are considered as primary sources to supply electricity directly to the load and to charge the battery bank when excess generation is happened. However, in peak demand times diesel generator could also be engaged. During the design of this power system set-up, the simulation and optimization was done based on the electricity load, climatic data sources, economics of the power components and other parameters in which the Net Present Cost (NPC) has to be minimized to select an economic feasible power system. The simulation results show many different feasible system configurations with different level of total NPC have been obtained from the HOMER Software. From the overall system simulation results containing the PV-wind-diesel generator-battery-converter setup shows a COE of $0.091/kWh and a total net present cost (NPC) of $91,217 has been proposed to the site. This set up system has no capacity shortage and no unmet electric load. Although the proposed system has relatively higher the levelized cost of energy (COE) than the national tariff of Ethiopia ($0.018/kWh), but it is the lower range of global electricity tariff. In my point of view, the energy shortage at the national level, resistance to deforestation, clean energy development and expansion of power generation, it is a highly recommendable solution.